000			03929cam a2200505 i 4500
001			2016041961
003			DLC
005			20190729110803.0
008			170113s2017 nyu b 001 0 eng
010			_a 2016041961
020			_a9781501329654 (hardcover)
020			_a9781501329647 (softcover)
020			_z9781501329678 (ePub)
020			_z9781501329661 (ePDF)
042			_apcc
043			_an-us---
040			_aDLC _beng _erda _cDLC _dDLC _dMvI
050	0	0	_aPS379 _b.M496 2017
082	0	0	_a813/.509 _223
084			_aLIT007000 _aLIT006000 _aLIT004020 _2bisacsh
100	1		_aMitchell, Lee Clark, _d1947-
245	1	0	_aMere reading : _bthe poetics of wonder in modern American novels / _cLee Clark Mitchell.
264		1	_aNew York : _bBloomsbury Academic, _c2017.
300			_ax, 262 pages ; _c23 cm
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_aunmediated _bn _2rdamedia
338			_avolume _bnc _2rdacarrier
520			_a"Mere Reading argues for a return to the foundations of literary study established nearly a century ago. Following a recent period dominated by symptomatic analyses of fictional texts (new historicist, Marxist, feminist, identity-political), Lee Clark Mitchell joins a burgeoning neo-formalist movement in challenging readers to embrace a rationale for literary criticism that has too long been ignored-a neglect that corresponds, perhaps not coincidentally, to a flight from literature courses themselves. In close readings of six American novels spread over the past century-Willa Cather's The Professor's House, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and The Road, and Junot DiÌaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao-Mitchell traces a shifting strain of late modernist innovation that celebrates a species of magic and wonder, of aesthetic "bliss" (as Barthes and Nabokov both coincidentally described the experience) that dumbfounds the reader and compels a reassessment of interpretive assumptions. The novels included here aspire to being read slowly, so that sounds, rhythms, repetitions, rhymes, and other verbal features take on a heightened poetic status-in critic Barbara Johnson's words, "the rigorous perversity and seductiveness of literary language"--thwarting pressures of plot that otherwise push us ineluctably forward. In each chapter, the return to "mere reading" becomes paradoxically a gesture that honors the intractability of fictional texts, their sheer irresolution, indeed the way in which their "literary" status rests on the play of irreconcilables that emerges from the verbal tensions we find ourselves first astonished by, then delighting in."-- _cProvided by publisher.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 241-254) and index.
505	8		_aMachine generated contents note: -- Introduction: Slowing Down -- 1. Possession in The Professor's House (1925) -- 2. Oscillation in Lolita (1955) -- 3. Hospitality in Housekeeping (1980) -- 4. Violence in Blood Meridian (1985) -- 5. Language in The Road (2006) -- 6. Belatedness in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) -- Epilogue: Resisting Rules -- Bibliography -- Index.
650		0	_aAmerican fiction _y20th century _xHistory and criticism.
650		0	_aAmerican fiction _y21st century _xHistory and criticism.
650		0	_aWonder in literature.
650		0	_aBooks and reading.
650		0	_aCriticism.
650		7	_aLITERARY CRITICISM / Books & Reading. _2bisacsh
650		7	_aLITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory. _2bisacsh
650		7	_aLITERARY CRITICISM / American / General. _2bisacsh
776	0	8	_iOnline version: _aMitchell, Lee Clark, 1947- author. _tMere reading _dNew York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017 _z9781501329661 _w(DLC) 2017001942
948			_au621857
949			_aPS379 .M496 2017 _wLC _c1 _hEY8Z _i33039001425577
596			_a1
903			_a35276
999			_c35276 _d35276